Artistic Integrity Vs. Client Wishes?

Originally Posted by Village Idiot As a worker, you have no obligation to link to their site. A portfolio is to showcase your work, not to promote their site. The only reason I link to my clients sites is because I don't want to host all those scripts on my server. Keeping the design on your server just means they might have changed it since you made it. No one will see it as dishonest.

Well the reason I say it's dishonest is because you're implying that the design you show was the design the company chose, which may not be true.

Originally Posted by Seb Well the reason I say it's dishonest is because you're implying that the design you show was the design the company chose, which may not be true.

Well, my original ORIGINAL design waas a mockup, and did not have anything to do with their company, no names or logos. So I could use that, since it was my original idea that they chose. They then had me modify the design a lot later on. So they look like different sites now.

Originally Posted by Village Idiot Keeping the design on your server just means they might have changed it since you made it. No one will see it as dishonest.

D'oh! That happened to me once and it ticked me off. I made this great design for a company I used to work for, back in my early days, and the guy who took over the job of updating it when I left was no web designer. He didn't follow the protocols I set for putting the images in place, and the whole page layout got skewered. I had to replace the live site with a picture of an early version of the site for my portfolio.

Originally Posted by Seb Well the reason I say it's dishonest is because you're implying that the design you show was the design the company chose, which may not be true.

He still created it though, so I don't see anything wrong with showing his work.

So my question is... do people in small businesses find themselves more comfortable with a crappy looking business site than an artsy one?

From what I've seen sadly, yes they do.

Originally Posted by Gurnk He still created it though, so I don't see anything wrong with showing his work. From what I've seen sadly, yes they do.

Because "artsy" doesn't always translate into good. And unlike "designers," most people don't give a crap about design, as long as the content is accessible and all the functions of the website are usable. Artsy just means extra embellishment, extra style, and extra flair. Some small businesses don't want all that and just want a plain, presentable website. And there *is* a way to satisfy them, to make a website simple and classy, without going the artsy and sleek route.

Originally Posted by Josué Because "artsy" doesn't always translate into good. And unlike "designers," most people don't give a crap about design, as long as the content is accessible and all the functions of the website are usable. Artsy just means extra embellishment, extra style, and extra flair. Some small businesses don't want all that and just want a plain, presentable website. And there *is* a way to satisfy them, to make a website simple and classy, without going the artsy and sleek route.

Very true. Sometimes though, people can force you to use really crappy stuff, like bad photos and graphics, that don't even accomplish the simple classy goal. Ah well.